Pello Bilbao achieved victory in stage 2 of the Tour of the Alps, after his amazing win, his rank increased to the overall race lead. Bilbao was leading the charge for Team Bahrain Victorious, and his victory was achieved through amazing teamwork, he could not have achieved this without the help of his three surviving teammates.
The Spaniard shared the podium with Romain Bardet (Team DSM) and Attila Valter (Groupama FDJ).
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Bahrain Victorious had an amazing start to the event, but the team experienced a split on the final ascent. The group of 11 riders that were in the front also broke in the middle. Bahrain Victorious then closed the gap between Pavel Sivakov (Ineos Grenadiers) and Michael Storer (Groupama FDJ).
In a post-race interview, Bilbao said:
It’s one of my favourite races, always after my home race, and I arrived in top shape. Today it’s been so nice to win because we need to do a great job, all the team worked all day waiting for the last moment, trying to arrive in a small group to win in a sprint. [Pavel] Sivakov and the rest of the riders in the breakaway made us work hard but in the end, it’s super nice. I don’t know how the guys still had the legs to do this nice sprint.
We were thinking that maybe this was too early, the attack was too early and they’re not going to find collaboration between them. Finally, they could arrive quite long. In the last descent, we pulled full gas and we could just, at the bottom of the last descent, [bring it] all together. In the last 10km the team was super-strong just to control everything in the last part of the stage
After winning stage 2 of the Tour of the Alps, Pello Bilbao will now be heading to stage 3. Bilbao had a lot to share about stage 2 and his plans for the upcoming stage.
It’s going to be difficult to control all the race. We saw yesterday, it was a hard stage. We had to spend some energy. Today we pulled [with] every single rider on the team. We are spending a lot, but we’re thinking every day of the stage victory. If we arrive on the last day with the leader’s jersey, of course, we will defend, but [the race] is still long.
The second stage of the Tour of the Alps was sprawling with a massive distance of 154km. Team Bahrain Victorious was leading this stage, and in the end, they had four riders in support of Bilbao. There was no one at this stage that could rival the Spaniard’s prowess.
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Featured Image Via YouTube/Cycling Pro Net
